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Beach clean up campaign
The fourth annual Vodacom Beach Clean Up campaign is scheduled to kick off from December 2008 until 07 January 2009. This comes during the time of the festive season where the influx of people opts to spend their holidays at Durban beaches.
The cleaners will assist local municipalities daily with clean up operations at a total of twenty-four beaches nationwide in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
"Vodacom is thrilled to be embarking on this worthwhile environmental campaign again to help ensure clean and safe beaches. We are also excited about the increased number of beaches that will be cleaned, the biggest to date, since the campaign began four years ago. Our close working relationships with our cleaners, the partnership with local municipalities, tourism and environmental bodies will ensure more benefits for all involved and ensure that thousands of visitors at these hotspots have more reason to love Summer," said Palesa Chabula, Vodacom's Executive Head of Corporate Communications. With Ten Vodacom-branded cleaners and one supervisor based at each beach and some of the areas shared, there will be a total of 208 cleaners and 22 supervisors employed.
Claire McKinnon, the Manager of Area Cleaning for the City of Cape Town thanks Vodacom for joining the City once again in this valuable partnership. "This is the forth year that Vodacom have assisted us in keeping some of our beaches clean during our busy festive season and we appreciate their help. We look forward to the partnership growing from strength to strength." In addition to the obvious benefits to the environment, holidaymakers and tourism, the 190 previously unemployed individuals will be afforded a financial head start for 2009. The cleaners will be sourced through NGO's and the local authorities in each area.
Last year, the Vodacom Beach Cleaners worked diligently over the festive season to clear a total of 37, 558 bags of litter, which could have caused extensive damage to the coastal areas. The litter collected also posed much threat to holidaymakers alike.
Vodacom Beach Cleaners reported that cigarette butts, plastic packets, take-away packaging, glass bottles and bottle tops were amongst the most common items that they found littering the beaches. Vodacom is in partnership with various municipalities and assists the regular municipal staff at South Africa's most popular beaches to provide a service to the public to ensure the attractiveness of the beaches to tourists over the busiest period. In Kwa Zulu-Natal, family hot spot Blue Lagoon will be cleaned and for the first time ever, four beaches on the Golden Mile will be cleaned namely Bay Beach, North Beach, South Beach and Addington. On the north coast Umdloti and Westbrook have been selected with Umgababa, Mtwalume, Margate and Scottburgh beaches benefiting from the campaign on the KZN south coast.
In the Eastern Cape Orient Beach in East London will be cleaned, Well's Estate in Port Elizabeth and Main Dolphin Beach in Jeffrey's Bay. A number of Mossel Bay beaches will also be cleaned including Hartenbos and Diaz, Santos and De Bakke, Boggoms and Vleesbaai. Plettenberg Bay beaches Robberg and Lookout have also been included.
Cleaners in the Western Cape will be assisting the municipal efforts at Camps Bay, Muizenberg, Clifton 3rd and 4th beaches, Hout Bay, Strand and Mnandi.
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